Monochrome Chât
by tamagopants
Summary: [AU][AkuSai] As part of a pact, Lea moves to the village of Silverkey. He gets a job and a house, and the villagers collectively believe even an ex-convict can turn his life around. With things this perfect, it seems fair that the only spanner in the works is that when he falls hard and fast in love, it has to be with the rudest and most insufferable person in the neighbourhood.


**Warnings**: Rated T for language. Contains slash, cross dressing, gender identity/uncertainty, drug crimes and other themes that I will put up as and when they occur.

**Disclaimer**: Characters are copyright to Square Enix and Disney.

**A/N:** Nothing much to say about this, except I had to act on my crazy AkuSai feels, and I decided to challenge myself and write something that's actually happy.

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**monochrome chât  
****ʇâɥɔ ǝɯoɹɥɔouoɯ**

**chapter 1: silverkey**

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_What is a face, really? Its own photo? Its make-up? Or is it a face as painted by such or such painter? That which is in front? Inside? Behind? And the rest? Doesn't everyone look at himself in his own particular way? Deformations simply do not exist._

— _Pablo Picasso_

**-x-**

For all Lea Murphy knew, he was driving down a canal on a one-way trip to the seafloor. He wound down the passenger window in a desperate attempt to read the house numbers; his Bug's battered windscreen wipers fought the heavy rain.

"Sixteen…fourteen…" He slowed down with the intention of rolling to a stop at number eight, but the Bug had had enough. Like an old man collapsing onto his bed at the end of the day, the Bug lurched against the kerb, sputtered and finally, stalled.

Lea examined his left and right. He could practically hear Reno pissing himself with laughter at the teenage girl level of parking. _Get out of town_, his brother would have said. _You just fucked up that rather important first impression_.

He yanked out the keys and sat back. He preferred the rain to the weighty silence of the Bug, so with a deep breath of recently-acquired strength, he got out.

The door to number six, Blue Park Lane was open. Its garden path was bordered by daffodils and warm pink hyacinths, and a girl was meandering down it, playing on an invisible hopscotch. She was safe from the rain, her little frame swallowed up by a plastic mac that put ladybird spots on her back and antennae on her hood. She stomped a few times in her wellies, right before the front gate, and then a burly man behind her scooped her to his side. Lea caught a brief look of the pair's faces as they neared, and then an umbrella exploded skywards and settled over his head.

"Lea Murphy?" the man shouted over the rain. He held out his hand. "Liam Gardiner. Welcome to Silverkey. It's a pleasure to finally meet."

"Thanks. It's good to put a face to the name."

"Come on, let's get you out of the rain. Leave your luggage to us."

Lea bent a little to see past the umbrella. Someone else was jogging down the path, and there were two other people in the doorway up ahead. "Seriously, we insist," the stranger called. He was doing squats in preparation for picking up the luggage. "Zack Fair, by the way. I'm your neighbour." Zack extended a hand, but he took Lea's keys instead. "Go on inside; my wife's just made tea."

"Be careful; it's an old model," Lea called after him warily. Even in the poor visibility, he could see Zack approaching the Beetle the way a restless tinkerer might creep up to a perfectly healthy pipe. "You need to swing the front seats forward to get to the back."

"Yeah, yeah." Zack waved a dismissive hand.

Liam handed over the umbrella. "Naminé," he said to the little girl hiding behind his leg. "Take Lea inside; have some brownies."

"We can't eat brownies," she said, but she took Lea's hand anyway and led him up the garden to number six.

**-x-**

Police Chief Squall Leonhart knew never to judge by appearance; however, he was aware that first impressions often said a lot. Not everything, but a lot.

Lea Murphy looked an utter wreck. He reminded Squall of his years in police academy when as part of one exercise, half the class wore custodian helmets to signify the police, and the other half – the criminals – had overdressed in dirty shirts, temporary tattoos and mud-caked biker's boots. Lea barely filled out his clothes, had a shock of damaged red hair, sported uneven stubble and had tried to hide the cigarette burns in his shirt by rolling up his sleeves. He didn't have the courtesy to take off his shoes in Zack and Aerith Fair's house. He stank of rain and smoke, such that Aerith was nearly bowled over by it when she offered him a towel and a spare pair of slippers. While she distracted him with a hot cup of tea and a homemade brownie, Squall stood at the door and surveyed the Beetle. Both Liam and Zack seemed perplexed that there were only three small boxes' worth of belongings.

Squall turned away from the front garden. "Travelled far, Mr Murphy?"

"Call me Lea." He stood up to shake Squall's hand; he had some civility at least. "I drove from Stratfield Saye – near Reading; took me about two hours."

"But you're a Londoner," Squall said.

"Yeah," Lea returned, "and going by that uniform, you're police."

"Chief Leonhart," he supplied. He motioned for Lea to sit back down, but the gesture went amiss.

"Did you run background checks on me?"

"It's standard procedure."

"Well, I'm here for a fresh start."

"And I'm only here to formally welcome you to the community," Squall answered evenly. "Sit down and take the brownie before Aerith loses all feeling in her legs."

Lea blinked, apparently unaware that Mrs Fair had been setting up an orderly tray at the coffee table right in front of him. He swore under his breath at the sight of her and stretched to do the tea himself. "Hey, I can manage; you sit down."

"It's okay; I'm only seven months," said Aerith. "I want to move around while I still can." She sat next to Naminé, sipping her tea. "What brings you to Silverkey? It's quite a change from city life."

"That's what I need." Lea's gaze shifted to Squall, perhaps trying to work out just how thorough the background check had been.

"It's a lovely town," Aerith enthused. She was clearly unfazed by Lea's thuggish looks, whereas Squall was already thinking about which cell to dump him in. "I think you will enjoy the country life. We often find that it's difficult to go back once you've had a taste of it."

Lea rubbed his collar, and through the thin material of the cheap shirt, Squall saw the silhouette of various tattoos on his arms and chest.

"When you took the house next door, you requested that your landlord look into job opportunities for you," Squall said. "I took the liberty of doing this for Liam; I have a job vacancy for you."

Lea somehow managed to look indignant despite having half a brownie in his mouth. "Already?"

"Don't be surprised. I know the ins and outs of Silverkey." Squall handed over the information pack, which Lea took warily. As the redhead sank back in his seat, his gaze lingered on Naminé.

"Hey, you like to draw?" He scooped up a colourful pair of finished works; Naminé caught a few of her felt tips before they rolled to the floor. "You're really good. Lots of grass and sky," he remarked. He pointed to a red square. "Is this your house?"

"We live on a farm," Naminé explained.

"You draw animals?"

Naminé shook her head.

"Nah." Lea swept her away from her shy admittance as easily as turning a page. "They're not easy to draw, are they. One time, when I was in primary school, I drew this picture of an alpaca in profile for this project our class was doing; I was so proud of it 'cause I mean, my brother was going on and on about it to anyone who'd listen. You'd think I'd just shamed Picasso or something. Anyway, when it came to the class display, my teacher pinned it upside down by mistake – it was that bad a picture – and people thought I'd drawn a toilet as a representation of my thoughts on South American culture." He shrugged, laughing quietly to himself. "Turns out Reno was the one who originally said that, and it escalated from there. Let me guess," he said abruptly, and his head turned to Squall. "You did some searching on my brother too. Is that what that deep frown's for?"

Squall started a little, instantly resenting this flash of weakness. "Should I have searched your brother?" he threw back. His attempt to sound authoritative was quickly destroyed when he tripped over the last word. Squall was distracted, confused. He was frowning, of course, but it wasn't aimed at Lea. Aerith's sharp look of bewilderment too, zeroed in on the armchair next to the redhead.

Somehow, a story about an alpaca and a toilet had been enough. Squall was only sorry that Liam missed the moment, because for the first time in two years, Naminé broke into a smile.

**-x-**

To Lea's relief, Liam was mercifully understanding of the dangers of information overload. He talked briefly about the tenancy agreement and showed the house, and then he slipped into a quick disagreement with his daughter and called it a day. Liam finished the formalities by pinning a yellow card to the fridge. "That has my home phone and mobile number," he said. "Any problems, you give me a call. Chief Leonhart gave you full details of your new job in that pack there; you start tomorrow, and Ienzo's taken the morning off school to show you the ropes."

Lea held open the porch door as Naminé wriggled her feet into her wellies. "Thanks for everything."

"Not a problem. One last thing I think might be good for you to know is that Silverkey's Mayor recently passed away. A guy named Xemnas Allsands and I are running our own campaigns to be the new Mayor."

Lea grinned. "And do I get evicted if I don't vote for my landlord?"

Liam snorted. "No, but you might find the rent might gain an extra zero." Liam zipped up his coat and freed his rather impressive mane of brown-pink hair from its thick collar. "Baby, you've got them on the wrong way round," he added. "Come here; I'll carry you." In a swift move of experience, he lifted Naminé up. She dangled limply, arms a weak loop round her father's neck. "Take care of yourself, Lea; I imagine we'll see each other soon." Liam fitted Naminé's ladybird hood over her head and walked out, and after shutting the marble glass door on the rain, Lea was plunged into the silence he had been dreading all evening.

He stared down the hall; the bare walls, bleached carpets and lonely rooms merged into one long stretch of emptiness, and all that had colour was Liam's post it note. Lea heaved a sigh and decided he might as well add that number to his phone's sorry-looking address book.

He sat on the kitchen counter and tore open Chief Leonhart's information pack next. He scoured the words for the fundamental part, the heart of the matter. "Oh, fuck no," he breathed. "No fucking way."

Slowly, Lea slid the papers back into their envelope. No amount of swearwords and uttered repetitions of the truth could ease him into this new reality.

Lea turned off all the lights and grabbed his keys. He had been wrong the whole time. He wasn't ready for this at all.

He threw open the door and once again, it was just him and the rain. Somehow, the combination of cold water trickling down his face and muddy puddles eating the bottom of his trousers was just the right dosage of dull pain he needed to lose any reminder of Reno – the Bug, the empty house, the prickly feeling of realisation that followed each time Lea had a joke and no one to tell it to.

He walked – for ages, it felt – down empty lanes that sliced cornfields from greenhouses, through dirt tracks embedded in small hills like a father's belt across his belly. The rain softened, cleared to give way to the gibbous moon teetering on the fingertips of a birch tree. Lea spotted a bench secured in concrete, layered by unkempt grass; he went to sit down, just to put his rampant thoughts to rest, but movement a little farther ahead caught his eye.

"Hey," he called, a little wary of what he might find. "Who's there? Are you okay?"

He swung himself over the bench to see a stranger on all fours, seemingly peering under a bush. "Shit," she kept saying over and over again. "Shit! What am I going to do?"

"Hey," Lea said again. "Are you all right?"

She sat back, apparently happy to sit in thick mud. "No," she admitted, and then she shouted, "Pluto! Pluto, where are you?"

"Pluto?" Lea repeated. "That your dog?"

She nodded, scraping back her long blue hair irritably. She made quick work of it by scooping it into a messy bun. "Oh, it's worse than that," she muttered. "The dog's not even mine; he's the kids'. Shit, Xemnas is going to kill me—! Pluto!"

Lea studied the hedge. It was too tangled for a person to crawl through, too tall to climb over. "Is this where you saw him last? Where does it lead to?"

"I think it's a barley field," she said.

"Maybe there's another way round," Lea suggested. "Come on, let's check the perimeter."

"There's a half wall a little farther down." She followed after him, their shoes squelching with each step. "It's deeper on the other side, though. I don't think I could—"

Lea stuck a foot in a niche in the wall and hoisted himself up. He peered over the other side. "Yeah, it is a bigger drop," he said. "Can you get up?"

She copied him, clambering onto the wall with a small grunt; her oversized anorak screeched against the wet stone. "So now we just need to jump to the other side?" she said uncertainly. Lea nodded, and without waiting for her, he leapt and landed with only a momentary aftershock.

"It's not too bad," he called up to her. He lifted his hands. "Come on, I'll help you down."

She wriggled to the edge, dangling her foot as low as possible.

Lea had done things like this before, from taking shortcuts home to the less innocent adventures of trespassing. These instances had been littered with moments when he had breached personal space in favour of not getting caught; he had pushed his friends' thighs and arses in order to help them through narrow windows; he had held his brother's arms to pull him over six foot railings and crashed into a bed of rubbish together. Lea was reminded of those moments as he lifted the stranger down, her hands on his shoulders and their torsos briefly pressed up and against each other.

His mind rewound to his teenage years of experimental one night stands, and then shot back to the present, where his hands had contacted her. He blinked a few times.

"Pluto!" she called, walking through the field with difficulty. She swore under her breath as she looked back at the visible trail of disturbed barley she was leaving. "We shouldn't walk around here too much; it's Mr Gardiner's property."

"Liam?" Lea said. He kicked at the barley. "He's all right, isn't he?"

She wore quizzical look, as though Lea had just announced that a crocodile with a toothache was perfectly safe to hug. "Come on, Pluto…!" she tried again.

"Pluto!" Lea joined in. He had no idea what he was looking for – he could be beckoning a crabby Rottweiler who hated redheads for all he knew – but he was secretly glad for the distractions the stranger offered. "Hey," he called after her. "If I'm going to join your search, can I at least know your name?"

"Saix Lefévre. You?" She turned round after she spoke, the start of a smile on her face. He delayed answering her return question, creating a reason to study her. She was pretty. Unusually pretty, a rough and dishevelled slant on conventional beauty. Messy hair, peg legs, long fingers, cheeks that glowed a healthy pale in the moonlight, a colour palette that reminded Lea of white clouds kissing the sea's horizon.

Lea had to admit, Saix Lefévre was one fucking beautiful guy.

**-x-**

Liam didn't get out of the car as soon as he turned off the engine; consequently, neither did Naminé. Liam used those still seconds to use the rear view mirror to survey her, his only baby. "You like Lea?"

Her gaze rested on the back of his head rather than the mirror. She nodded.

Liam bit his lip, kept his relief and hope in check. "That's good," he commented after a moment. "That's good progress."

He got out of the car with Naminé in tow. Their jumps across the gathering puddles alerted the movement detector, which flooded the front garden of their townhouse with light. Liam turned the key and called out, "We're back."

Liam hung up their coats as Naminé let her mother kiss her hello. Then, Arlene Goldsmith straightened up and like a chemical reaction, her smile dissolved into an acidic sneer at the mere sight of him.

"Why don't you go upstairs and play until dinner?" Liam suggested to Naminé. As soon as their daughter was out of sight, Arlene rounded on him.

"Wow, I never guessed our new tenant was an invisible man," she snapped.

"He wasn't up for more socialising." Liam kicked off his shoes and sniffed the air. "Are you still cooking?"

"Yes," Arlene huffed. "I put on a roast because I thought you'd be bringing back impressionable company. But, once again, I overestimated your capability as a mayoral candidate who can actually be taken as a serious competitor. You always do this." She stomped back to the kitchen and yanked open the oven door. "You go out with your promises, building me up to think you're about to lasso the world, and then you come back with something as crap as an atlas, and what comes after that? You accuse _me _of being overreaching, over the top, when all I'm doing is trying to match you. You make a fool out of me every single bloody day!"

"Look, I said you should make something nice; I didn't say cook a whole chicken, did I? Bloody hell, you cooked a whole chicken?" Liam revisited his words, more interested than horrified.

Arlene threw off her oven gloves and began to hack at their dinner with a two-pronged fork and a carving knife. She jabbed him aside with an elbow, but Liam slinked behind her to kiss the side of her neck. "Piss off," she snapped.

"Leave the dinner a sec; sit down." He nudged her to their kitchen island, a little pleased to see how easily her anger fell aside for begrudging curiosity. "I've got something to say; something really important."

Arlene wriggled in her seat crossly, pushing him away and then on second thought, an inch closer. "Liam Gardiner, if the word 'marry' is in your next sentence, I promise I will baste you the way I basted that chicken."

Liam cupped her face. "She smiled," he said simply.

Arlene's lips thinned. "What?"

"She smiled," he said again. "The Chief told me. I was unloading Lea's car, but she smiled; Aerith saw it too."

The numerous layers to Arlene's iron defence began to crack at the edges. Her worry lines faded, taking years off her, and she managed a jittery smile of her own. "How?" she murmured. "I mean, who—?"

"Our good friend Lea Murphy."

**-x-**

The barley spikes dithered like springy metronomes as the sound of rustling got louder, and to both Saix and Lea's relief, a copper-coloured puppy dashed into them.

"Pluto," Saix exclaimed, and she swept the small spaniel up into her arms. She scolded the dog before breathing out a long sigh and letting the muscles in her shoulders relax. "It's really lucky you're here; you must have piqued his interest and he came back. Thank you."

"My pleasure," he returned. Pluto looked between them, panting happily without a shred of guilt. Saix zipped the dog in the front of her anorak, and Lea helped her back up. Now that the panic was over, she sat comfortably next to him, the heels of her wrecked espadrilles digging into the wall. Pluto began to climb over their laps, sniffing Lea's pockets.

"So, you er…you mentioned kids?" Lea said.

"They're not mine," she answered lightly. "I live with their parents; you know, a roof above my head in exchange for helping round the house. Not very well, mind you." She gestured to Pluto and her lips thinned. "What about your family?"

"None in Silverkey; I only arrived today." Lea jumped off the half wall before he let his thoughts wander to dangerous territory. "So, that same family made you walk a loopy spaniel in the pouring rain by yourself?"

"That was my bright idea," said Saix. She began a slow walk back to town. "I often let them down, so I do stupid things like this to try and make up for it."

"Let them down? How?"

"I forget things," she replied dully, and in the same way Lea had skirted shy of the subject of family, Saix dodged any further conversation on this point. She smiled. "Anyway, I'm not the only one out in the rain for no reason."

Lea raked his damp hair, which now stuck to the sides of his face. "I was running away from the apparent solution to my problems." He shrugged. "I come here looking for a new life, it gets handed to me on a silver platter and you know what? I can't take it."

"Perhaps it's too much change at once," Saix pointed out. "You need something to keep you grounded, like a float in the ocean. Without that base, the urge to run away is understandable."

"You're looking too deeply into it. It's more the case that I can't fit in somewhere so normal. So far, in this town of smug mayoral candidates, overly friendly neighbours inviting me to tea and pregnant wives with homemade cake, the only person I actually felt comfortable around was a little girl." He folded his arms behind his head as he walked; it was a habit he had picked up from his toddler years. "You're right, by the way. I do need something to ground me. Normally, it would have been my brother. I was hoping my job would have been enough, but it turns out that from tomorrow, I'm a librarian. A fucking _librarian_."

Saix failed to suppress a smile, and Lea continued, "I mean, you're probably wondering the same thing I am: just how many residents of prim and proper Silverkey would actually try and borrow a book from a guy who had spent the last few years in jail?"

She remained unfazed. "I'm sure if they can accept a cross dresser, they can accept an ex-con."

Saix found some amusement in Lea's audible sigh of relief. "Thanks for not making me ask," Lea said. "That would've been horribly awkward if I had assumed wrong."

Saix loosened Pluto's lead, letting the spaniel run a few feet ahead to sniff the damp grass. She tugged at the zip of her anorak. "Does it bother you?"

Lea shook his head. "You're not the first cross dresser I've met. First good one, though," he added. "Aren't you going to ask me what I was in jail for?"

"Aren't you going to ask me why I cross dress?" Saix returned.

He laughed through his nose. "All right," he smiled. "We'll avoid the things we're clearly dying to find out about. Well, I'd settle for just your number."

Saix bit her lip thoughtfully, and Lea tugged his collar without realising he'd even done it. "Okay," she said. "Then pass me your hand."

He watched silently – he was convinced that if he spoke, she'd change her mind – as she wrote a line of numbers below the hills of his knuckles, her fingers on his sleeve. "I might not always pick up," she said, crossing the sevens. "I'm like ink in the rain – fleeting."

"Yeah?" Lea took the pen and held her cold hand. He made a hash of writing his number at first, his gaze too busy studying her fingers. "Then I'm tattoo ink, the permanent you'll-regret-having-it-done kind."

**-x-**

Aqua Allsands was facing the moon, arm tucked under her head and fingers skirting the squares of light. She didn't want to go to sleep, because she could still hear the twins laughing. Their giggles reverberated through her, and she felt warm, the way she had felt when they had nudged her hello all those years ago inside the swell of her stomach.

"Why are they laughing?" Xemnas muttered into his pillow.

Aqua rolled over and kissed the curve of his shoulder. "They've snuck Pluto into their room and think I don't know."

Xemnas groaned and sank back as Aqua spooned him. "They're going to be crying in the morning when the bloody dog's pissed on their bed."

"Pluto's housebroken," she corrected. "Saix and I trained him."

"Shit," said Xemnas.

"That too – all outside. It's amazing how quickly positive reinforcement—"

"No, no, _shit_!" He sat up in bed as though the lazy lines she had been drawing on his arm had sliced him. "Was it the fifth today?"

"All day."

"Shit!" Xemnas said again. "Lea Murphy moved in today. Why didn't you remind me?"

Aqua surveyed his stark shadow. Xemnas fisted his hair and turned round to prompt an answer. "You wouldn't have had time to visit," she reasoned. "Besides, you're not going to be showing your best side all the while Liam's around."

"I bet he treated Lea to the whole spiel," Xemnas seethed. "From a farmhouse dinner party to that vulture of a girlfriend." He flopped back into bed, and Aqua sifted through the strands of mahogany until she had a forehead to kiss.

"Then Lea will surely appreciate someone who isn't as overbearing." She patted his chest. "In any case, the matter is hardly solved that quickly. Swinging the town to your side via Lea isn't like climbing a mountain and putting up a flag once you get there; it takes patience and planning, neither of which are a forte of yours."

Aqua heaved herself out of bed and grabbed her dressing gown. "Go to sleep," she said. "I'll be back in a minute."

She padded down the landing, deliberately leaving the light off so they wouldn't catch her smiling, and opened the bedroom door. Pluto leapt off the closest bed and bounded out the room.

"Roxas and Ventus," she whispered loudly. She could make out their silhouettes in the dark, sat up and covering their mouths to keep in their giggles. Most of their pillows had found their way to the floor. "Bedtime, _now_! You have school tomorrow. Not one more sound!"

She shut the door and looked round to see where Pluto had scampered off to. Then, she caught the sliver of light downstairs at the porch. Aqua leaned across the banister. "Saix, is that you?"

"No, it's me." The hallway light clicked on, and Isa Lefévre craned his neck up to meet her gaze. "Aqua, who the hell is Lea? Only I have his number on my hand."


End file.
